I hope many of you were able to watch the NBC Dateline interview with Suzanne Somers (author of the book KNOCKOUT) and two of the doctors (mentioned in her book) who are demonstrating success in curing cancer using alternative protocols. These doctors are Dr. S. Burzynski (Houston) and Dr. N. Gonzalez (New York). Being a stage 3 colon cancer survivor of eleven years using surgery to remove the tumor, one month of horrendous chemotherapy and then alternative medicine to actually clean-up and heal my body, this was an interview that I didn’t want to miss. By the way, you can watch the entire Dateline program at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032600/#/41718740 (note that the entire program is in 7 segments).
Where Is The Proof?
While the interview wasn’t as detrimental toward alternative medicine as it could have been, it was still, in my opinion, very biased toward the standard use of conventional cancer treatment (deemed the definitive science treatment) no-matter-what. Dr. Nancy Snyderman (NBC’s resident doctor and interviewer) repeatedly asked for evidence of clinical studies and trials (maybe she is not aware of reports that continually tell us these studies and trials can be skewed in order to get a drug to market) and at one point forceably asked “where is the proof?” Even after several cured patients gave their testimonies, it was as if these cured and very much alive and active cancer survivors were absolutely of no consequence as to the success of these doctors. In other words, clinical trials and studies were obviously much more important than any physical evidence of patients who had been cured.
Cost of Alternative Cancer Treatment vs Conventional Cancer Treatment
During the interview the cost of using alternative medicine was discussed. At one point the interviewer indicated that Dr. Gonzalez’s alternative cancer protocol could cost “well over $12,000.00 a year” which equals to $1,000.00 per month.
The one month of chemotherapy that I did (one treatment every week for 4 weeks) cost our insurance company $18,000.00. Had I completed the six months “preventative” chemo protocol, the cost would have been $108,000 plus the meds to take care of all the side-effects. One bottle of an anti-nausea med that was prescribed for me cost our insurance company $1500!
No Cancer Treatment is Guaranteed 100% – Hope is not real!
Also included in the interview were two families who had tried alternative medicine with a family member and the family member ending up dying. Supposedly the concern was that they were actually given “hope’. Since the outcome for these two families was not a success, several of the conventional doctors indicated that hope should not be given for any treatment that is “unproven” in the eyes of science — even if that treatment is working for many people. And at one point Barrie Casselith who is actually a PhD and not a medical doctor declared that “hope is not real” with a very solemn and almost angry demeanor. From personal experience, I would imagine that many cancer patients as well as cancer survivors would highly disagree with her conclusion.
Conventional Cancer Treatment Success?
Of course, it was not mentioned how many eventually die from the ravages of chemotherapy/radiation and surgery or how many patients go on to develop secondary cancers as a result of conventional cancer treatments. The conventional medicine “experts” seemed to indicate that alternative medicine cancer protocols must be successful every time. Once again, they failed to mention the dismal success rates of conventional cancer treatment. The mindset of the conventional cancer industry seems to not be about finding a cure and getting people well. Instead their words and actions indicated it is more about studies, peer reviews and clinical trials (think about how many “clinically tested” drugs end up killing or causing severe health concerns), about being right (science is always right…correct?) and also about an inflated ego that exudes “if we don’t have a cure, then neither can anyone else.” Suzanne Somers says this mentality is nothing but jealousy. After watching the faces of the experts, I can’t help but to agree.
Anecdotal Evidence Doesn’t Count!
Hopefully the viewing audience realized that something was very wrong with the conventional medicine “case” as well as how persistently the interviewer and the conventional doctors suggested dishonesty on the part of the doctors who provided to NBC Dateline, patients that have been obviously cured of cancer. And again, Barrie Casselith PhD tells us that anecdotal evidence doesn’t count. Possibly not in the world of all-knowing definitive science, but I guarantee it definitely counts to those individual cancer survivors who are well and living a full life because of alternative medicine cancer treatment.
A Huge Positive
The positive side of this program is that millions of people now know about Dr. Gonzalez and Dr. Burzynski. Even better, the public knows that there are definitely successful and non-toxic ways to overcome a cancer diagnosis. Certainly alternative medicine will not work for everyone and neither does chemotherapy/radiation/surgery; in fact, the success percentages for chemotherapy are less than 6% for most cancers.
I applaud Suzanne in her determination to stand-up and get the truth out to the masses, while having to go through the mean spirited suggestions of dishonesty and quackery from the media and conventional medicine. In the beginning of the program she was portrayed as an actress and multi-million dollar merchandiser suggesting that she had no real qualifications to give out any type of truthful information. We must remember that Suzanne went through a personal diagnosis of cancer. Certainly that does not make her an expert, but it does make her a participant as to what is offered for treatment and how that treatment can affect the body. She also experienced a totally wrong diagnosis from a doctor who was ready to run her through the gamit of chemotherapy and radiation. No time to loose is the mantra after a diagnosis is made when truthfully most people definitely have time to research, think and pray about what course of treatment to take. From experience, when one ends up with a diagnosis that could take their life, it’s definitely time to get serious and find out what is really successful, what is hype in conventional and alternative, percentage of good results as well as learning the “lingo” of conventional medicine oncology.
Below is Dr. Burzynski’s input about the interview. This is posted on Suzanne Somer’s blog. I thought you might like to read what really happened with the “proof” that Dr. Snyderman kept asking for.
Dateline KNOCKOUT – Dr. Burzynski Response
by Suzanne Somers 2/22/2011 1:14:00 PM
I received the below letter from Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski regarding the omissions from the Dateline story, whic
I am reminded of the Arthur Schopenhauer quote on the three stages of truth. “Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first it is ridiculed, in second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self-evident.” Regarding the truth about cancer and alternatives, we are deep into “violent opposition.”
Please read Dr. Burzynski’s letter in response to his appearance on Dateline. As you will clearly see, he was misrepresented there was no mention that he has completed Phase II clinical trials in compliance with the FDA! Knowing this would have been very convincing to the viewing audience but, unfortunately, it was omitted. I personally have seen, and/or spoken with many, many of Dr. Burzynski’s “cured” patients. Sadly, their stories were also omitted. Many of these patients are written about in KNOCKOUT.
If ever you or a loved one are in the terrible situation of being diagnosed you will be grateful there are doctors like Dr. Burzynski and Dr. Gonzalez who offer other options.
Sincerely,
Suzanne Somers
Dear Suzanne,
Dateline is known to expose criminals, and they are good at this. There is no doubt that for them to produce the story at all, which we saw on Sunday, is our success. The interviews with you and the patients were great, and with Dr. Gonzalez and me, not too bad. The photographic part was also very good. What was absent was investigative acumen of the two women regarding the experts presented, who are simply crooks. Their lies and half-truths should be exposed. First of all, there was no doctor on the show who knows anything about the treatment of brain tumors. One of the experts was not an oncologist and not even a medical doctor, (the woman from Sloane Kettering, Barrie Casselith is a PhD, Chief Integrative Medicine Service), and the other doctor has nothing to do with the treatment of patients. The third “expert” recently changed places from M.D. Anderson to Cancer Treatment Centers of America, and certainly, he has never treated brain tumors in his life. Dateline was reluctant to give the credentials of these experts, yet, on the other hand, they refused to present our sources, who actually work in the field.
I repeatedly mentioned Dr. Julian Whitaker to them as an excellent expert, and who would have been much better than Dr. Andrew Weil, an M.D. who has no expertise in cancer or oncology. Because Dateline did not include the experts who were on our side, I felt the story was poorly balanced. The doctors featured knew very well that we have numerous successful Phase II clinical trials, which show statistics of patient responses; therefore, these are not “anecdotal case reports”, as he said. The producers of Dateline are also aware that we are now in Phase III clinical trials, which clearly proves that the treatment is safe and efficacious. At the beginning of last year we made a public announcement about Phase III clinical trials conducted in Japan, which compares the results of antineoplastons with standard chemotherapy in colon cancer (killing the argument of the doctor from M.D. Anderson that the treatment was not compared with standard therapy). When he looked at our publications he purposely picked up the abstract from the Congress of Neuro-Oncology as proof that we have only published abstracts, and not full-length, peer-reviewed papers. He knew very well that the stack of the papers, which he had in front of him, consisted of peer-reviewed papers as well as book chapters. At that same time, the Dateline reporter (Dr. Nancy Snyderman) knew very well what was going on, yet did not expose it as a pack of lies and half-truths. This goes poorly with such refined investigative reporting. My belief is that the “experts” were working on behalf of the American Cancer Society to desperately cover the truth and defend their losing ground.
Dateline raised the issue of “transparency of our records.” During their visits to our clinic they had unlimited access to patients whom they interviewed, and their medical records and scans. After they left, they requested that we send all of our films of the scans of successfully treated brain tumor patients to them so that their experts could review them. We informed Dateline that according to the rules governing clinical trials, we have to keep the originals in well-organized archives. They could not be sent to Dateline for review, but we would be glad to make them available for their experts if they wanted to visit our clinic. One of our radiologists would accompany them, and we would assign a special office for them. We told them they could stay as long as they wished. We were surprised to hear that the experts refused to do it, because they were too busy. Subsequently, Dateline requested that we make copies of the x-rays to send to them. We immediately contacted an imaging center, which promised to do it within approximately six weeks, for $14,000 (we are talking about hundreds of x-rays which needed to be either copied or converted to CDs). The time and the amount of money to proceed with this project were unacceptable to Dateline. They narrowed down their request to a smaller number of x-rays, but still the amount of money necessary to do it was in the range of $2,000. Subsequently, the project was dropped by Dateline
Anyway, smart people will know very well what is going on. Congratulations to you. I have no doubt that the next story will be much better.
Stanislaw R. Burzynski, M.D., PhD.
Burzynski Clinic
9432 Katy Freeway, #200
Houston, TX 77055
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